The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that were the Toronto Stock Exchange to be called on the carpet for poor performance, it would not have much with which to defend itself. The Globe's Tim Shufelt writes that from GDP growth to productivity to employment to housing to financial markets and more, the data point to Canada lagging well behind the United States by nearly every conceivable economic and financial measure. The gap in stock market performance has widened steadily over the last year, during which the S&P/TSX Composite Index is little better than flat, while the S&P 500 Index has gained 21 per cent. This may strike some readers as an unfair comparison. The U.S. is a bastion of economic strength at a time when much of the West is stagnant. The American economy grew at a brisk annualized pace of 3.3 per cent in the fourth quarter, while Canada's GDP growth is likely to come in closer to 1 per cent. The eurozone grew by just 0.1 per cent. However, most of the world's other major stock markets have managed to rise above their own economic impediments. French and German stock benchmarks both ended the week at record highs, and the Nikkei 225 is up by 40 per cent over the past 12 months.